Hot Topics:

Longmont-based Mobile Canning starting to branch out nationally

By Tony KindelspireLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
01/05/2013 09:00:00 PM MST

Updated:
01/08/2013 05:52:21 PM MST

Mobile Canning, launched in Longmont in September 2011 by two entrepreneurs with the goal of bringing canning operations to microbreweries, has been growing steadily since, along the Front Range and elsewhere.

"From the beginning Ron (Popma) and I had the idea that we wanted to grow beyond the Colorado borders," said co-owner Pat Hartman.

Both natives of West Chester, Penn., Hartman and Popma didn't meet until they each had moved to Colorado. Both were former high-tech guys and home brewers, but was Hartman who originally had the idea of a mobile beer canning company, and Popma quickly signed on as a co-founder.

The pair partnered with Boulder-based Wild Goose Engineering to design a portable canning line that would fit into the back of a truck and could be wheeled into a brewery to can its beer. At the end of the day the canning machine is packed backed into the truck and taken back to Longmont until the next job.

The plan was to find breweries that either didn't want the expense of buying their own -- machines can easily run $100,000 -- or, as in the case of the state's oldest microbrewery, Boulder Beer Co., didn't have room for one.

They've taken to calling their core business Mobile Canning Colorado, to distinguish it from the out-of-state affiliate program they have launched. Mobile Canning Colorado has about 10 clients ranging from Greeley to Eagle, including Boulder Beer.

"They could do 100 cases in a day whereas we could come in and do 450," Popma said. "Literally they come in there with forklifts and move everything out of the way so we can bring our stuff in there."

Given the explosion of microbreweries around the country, Hartman and Popma thought the idea would work elsewhere and they were right, as word of their business spread quickly among the close-knit craft beer community.

"We've been getting a lot of calls from guys around the country, saying, 'Hey, we like what you're doing and we think it will work in our part of the country,'" Hartman said.

So the pair developed a separate entity, Mobile Canning Systems, and found their first customer in Mike Horn, the owner of Richmond, Va.-based Old Dominion Mobile Canning.

"I hadn't even heard of them until August of last year," Horn said. "Pat and I hit it off pretty quick. We both wanted to get into brewing and found a different path."

Horn said he found the company online and, after visiting the operation in Longmont, signed on to be one of three "early adopter" affiliates. The other two are in Ohio and Michigan.

Affiliates are charged a one-time start-up fee and then an ongoing monthly fee. In exchange, Mobile Canning Systems provides its affiliates with a business model to follow.

"It's an affiliate program, not a franchise in the sense that we don't want to tell anybody how to run their business," Hartman said.

Affiliates don't have to buy a mobile canning machine from Wild Goose but they get a price break if they do. Mobile Canning Systems provides affiliates with a week of training, sales materials, consulting services -- even details such as what kind of truck to buy and how it should be arranged inside. Mobile Canning buys the cans from Ball Corp. and does its own labeling in-house. Once its affiliates start canning beer, they will buy the labeled cans for their customers from Mobile Canning Systems, using the power of bulk purchasing to lower the price.

Horn said he's looking forward to his machine arriving in March. In the meantime, he's been busy lining up potential clients.

He's already signed up Devils Backbone Brewing Co., which took home eight medals at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival. Horn said the brewery originally called Hartman, who steered them to Horn since both he and the brewery are in Virginia.

"I have at least five other breweries that are ready to start in the April or May time frame," Horn said.

Renegade Brewing of Denver is a client of Longmont-based Mobile Canning. In this photo taken there last week, cans are hand-fed onto a conveyor belt, top right, and they then pass through an "insta-rinse" machine before passing underneath the filler heads, center. After the caps are sealed the cans move off the line, bottom left, for packaging. (Lewis Geyer/Times-Call)
(
LEWIS GEYER
)

MacIntyre feels Colorado is capable of making run at bowl gameCU BUFFS FALL CAMPWhen: 29 practices beginning Wednesday morning 8:30-11 a.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday practices are open to the media and public next week. Full Story

MacIntyre feels Colorado is capable of making run at bowl gameCU BUFFS FALL CAMPWhen: 29 practices beginning Wednesday morning 8:30-11 a.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday practices are open to the media and public next week. Full Story

It didn't take long for Denver music observers to notice Plume Varia. Husband and wife Shon and Cherie Cobbs formed the band only two years ago, but after about a year they started finding themselves on best-of lists and playing the scene's top venues. Full Story